This Rage of Echoes

by Simon Clark

  ‘Mason, listen. It’s me …’

  ‘Go away,’ I told the invisible whisperer. Thirty paces away, at the other end of the narrow cell Madeline stared. She wondered if I was talking to her. By now, she feared me again. Then she had every right because here I crouched in my shorts, muttering to myself.

  ‘Mason.’ The whisper strove to reach through my paranoia. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Mom?’ I shook my head. ‘No, they’re screwing with you, Mason. This is a trick.’

  ‘Mason. Down here.’

  The angle of the single lamp made the section of floor where it met the wall nothing less than a ravine of shadow. Nevertheless, the voice brought me to my knees.

  ‘Mom, is that you?’ My God, a lame question, but I had to ask it or go mad.

  ‘I’m in the next cell,’ came the familiar voice. ‘Eve’s in the next one to me.’

  ‘How long have you been in there?’

  ‘Just a few minutes. We’re in the old high school. They kept us locked up in the basement. I don’t know why they moved us.’

  ‘They haven’t hurt you? Or Eve?’

  ‘We’re OK. They haven’t touched you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ So a white lie of sorts.

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘They locked me in with a girl. Madeline. I don’t know who she is apart from her name.’ Another white lie. So, go right ahead and explain to someone how a stranger becomes you. There’s this clone virus, you see. Soon they begin to acquire your characteristics, then … See? It’s better to show than tell.

  ‘Mason, let me see your face. Please, I thought they’d killed you when they attacked you at the house. Let me see that it’s really you and you’re OK.’

  ‘I am. Believe me.’

  Her voice caught on the emotion. ‘Listen, Mason. If you get right down to the floor there are gaps in the bricks. Can you see?’

  I shuffled on my hands and knees like some mutant bottom feeder, the side of my face sliding along the tiles as I looked through each gap in the blocks. Then I saw a glint of an eye through one of the spaces.

  ‘Mom, I can see you.’

  ‘I see you, too.’ Her voice grew a little louder as she called, ‘Eve? Your brother’s here. He’s safe.’

  ‘I’ll get us out, Mom,’ I promised. ‘Whatever it takes I’m going to make sure we go home soon.’

  A sound came as a metallic roar of thunder. I guessed someone had just stamped with all their might on the cage roof directly above me. Raising myself to my knees, I looked up. A figure stood on the bars. All I could see were the soles of their shoes. Then the feet moved, a flat of a palm now pressed against the bars. Whoever was up there above my head had crouched down in order to study me. I glanced at Madeline. Tense with fear, she stood hugging herself. My eyes lifted to stare into the darkness above the metal grille.

  A calm voice drifted down. ‘Mason Konrad. This is a good time to introduce myself.’ With a click came a glow. It was directed into the face of whoever gazed at me. Can I say, hand on heart, this came as a shock? No, I cannot. This is inevitable. Sooner or later I’d experience this encounter. The man up there wore the same face as I did. We were identical in every feature. Snap.

  chapter 16

  When the light went out it effectively vanished the man – that man with my face. My features; my hair; my smile that says: prove to me that I can trust you. The lamp at the other side of the building still shone; it cast a spider-web pattern of shadows on my bare chest. The sound of running water started, a gushing roar that reverberated from the walls. They’d turned on the water before to snuff out the flames on the burning Echoman. This time I knew what they planned to do.

  ‘Mason?’ My mother’s voice reached me over the roar. ‘What’s that sound?’

  ‘Water. They’re going to fill the pool.’

  ‘I heard someone speaking to you. A man’s voice … who was it?’

  ‘Nobody you know.’ Silver oozed through gaps at the bottom of the wall. ‘It’s going to be cold, Mom. Tell Eve to keep out of the water for as long as she can. That goes for you, too.’

  ‘They’re going to drown us?’

  ‘I doubt it. They’re aiming to push us to breaking point.’ Water sluiced across the tiled floor. Thirty paces away Madeline looked down as it washed over her bare feet, in that light, liquid silver.

  ‘Mason, it’s coming through the gaps in the wall.’

  ‘I know. Listen, don’t worry. I’m going to get us out of here.’

  Easy to speak the words … just how, pray?

  I ran across to Madeline. She flinched back, probably expecting me to strike her. ‘Did you see who was up there a moment ago? Have you seen him before?’

  She shook her head.

  I pushed on as the blasting roar echoed round the swimming pool. ‘Did you see how they brought us in here? Listen to me, is there a doorway, or a hatch?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The cold water had reached her calves by now.

  ‘Right, I’ll force them to show me.’ I called out, ‘Natsaf-Ty, I need your help! It’s time to pay me a visit. Come on, I want you here. You’ve got to help. Show me what you can do. You were keeper of the Sacred Crocodiles – that meant something important back then, didn’t it?’ What is Natsaf-Ty? He’s an exhibit in a museum; OK, I know that. Psychologists will explain that he was a projection of my sub-conscious when I went through troubled times as a child. But if the Echoman who wore my face had somehow been feeding my mind with ideas then this should be a two-way street. I’d feed his mind with images of my old imaginary friend. Where the shadows were deepest I pictured Natsaf-Ty standing there. A red figure with criss-cross bandages across his chest and loin. Skeleton thin arms. A gash in his side where embalmers removed his internal organs. A hairless head with cracked scalp, complete with an egg-sized hole that revealed the void where the brain had been. Now, the final details. The lightly closed eyes; the noble, serene face. Then the quirky feature that makes museum visitors laugh out loud. The tip of a dry tongue slightly protruding from the lips. Sometimes it came across as an expression of him concentrating on solving a problem. Other times it said: Go on and look at me, I don’t care. I’m immortal, are you?

  When I’d pictured Natsaf-Ty against that wall masked by shadows I closed my eyes so I could put all my energy into visualizing him. A gaunt figure that glows dull red with shuttered eyes that somehow have the power to scan the mysterious hidden places of the universe and the human heart alike.

  Presently, I heard feet approach over the sound of rushing water. You want to see for yourself, don’t you? My look-alike thinks he can see a third figure. One that glows with a red light. You’re puzzled, aren’t you? And because you’ve been reaching into my head you’ve seen a memory of this figure. You believe it must be real. I sank to my knees as I kept the image of wise old Natsaf-Ty there. How my doppelganger must wonder what powers I possess to conjure a stranger into the cell – one that might prove to be dangerous to Echofolk. Damn, that’s cold water. It swirled around my waist as I crouched there. What the man on the cage bars above me couldn’t see was that I reached into the gap where I’d hidden the belt; the one with the wolf’s-head buckle that I took from the attacker after he’d fried in his own body fat. The copy of me knelt down on the cage roof to stare at the luminous figure of Natsaf-Ty. Sight of the mummy fascinated him, even though it only existed in my imagination. In some nebulous telepathic way the Echoman picked up what was in my mind’s eye.

  What he didn’t see was me lunge upward with the leather belt wrapped around my fist, the metal pin that normally went through the belt hole now protruding wickedly between my first and second fingers. A foot above me the man had his face pressed against the bars; his eyes (that were identical to my eyes) gazed at Natsaf-Ty.

  Bang! I punched the metal grille directly beneath his face. The steel buckle pin that wasn’t much thinner than a nail you’d bash into timber went straight through. It punctured the skin on his lef
t cheek; there it embedded itself in the roots of his teeth that were set in his upper jaw. The howl of agony made the water’s roar a gentle whisper in comparison. In effect, I’d nailed the buckle to his upper jaw. Even though he tried to pull away from me the stout pin held him down by the face; moreover, the force of the blow must have folded the point over to form a barb. I held on to the leather belt; it was singed, cracked, burnt bits came off in my hand but it held. Like a hooked fish he twisted his head from side to side to loosen the pin from where it nailed his face. Blood squirted. He was yelling now. Madeline ran to help me. She’s an Echogirl. She should have helped the guy who thrashed his limbs on the cage roof, but maybe she hadn’t finalized her allegiances yet, because she reached through the bars to hang on to his hand. And what a hand. A hand like mine, complete with scar in the shape of a bright red Y. Just like mine. Just like Madeline’s.

  Mason 2 screamed like he was being murdered. And, by God, I’d have murdered him if I had the chance. Help came in the form of the guy we’d seen beaten to crud, but he was still somewhere between life and death. His broken arms swung as if they were joke limbs made from foam rubber.

  ‘You should know better than to mutilate your own people,’ I yelled up into the bloody face that was connected to the wolf’s-head buckle by a pin that must have decided when it came to its finest moment of existence would never break. Although from the way the Mason 2’s cheek became extruded into a pyramid I realized it was starting to withdraw. Whatever happened now I couldn’t let him escape. There he was, his face held down against the cage by the single steel buckle pin. In a second it would rip free from where I’d embedded it. As soon as it did he’d scramble away. And because the bars of the cage roof were between me and my flesh and bone photocopy there’d be nothing I could do.

  ‘Hold on to his hand!’ I shouted at Madeline. ‘We’ve got to force them to show us how they access the cell!’

  The guy whom they’d beaten, just so they could prove to us that vicious assaults were something they accomplished without difficulty, collapsed on to the bars above us. There he lay groaning. A useless piece of man meat. Mason Konrad 2 still howled. Yet any second now he’d be free. Then he’d vanish. What then? Nurse his wounded face as he enjoyed the spectacle of us drowning in the pool?

  The pin started to slide. Blood jetted from the wound. It created pain in the Echoman’s face that can only be guessed at. Howls broke through his lips, the force of it sprayed saliva on to us. His eyes crimped tight shut.

  ‘Suffer you bastard! Go on, suffer!’ Then I called to Madeline, ‘Put your other hand through the bars. Get your fingers over his wrist. No! Don’t try to hold on to it. Plait your fingers together! Form a cradle then use your body weight to hold him.’

  She plaited her fingers over his wrist as his forearm lay flat against the bars above us. Good God, I wish I had a knife to jab into his belly. At last the pin slid out, ripping the flesh of his cheek as it exited. Instantly, a sudden stinging flared up in my left cheek. That’s the Echomen’s magic trick, I told myself. I’m starting to feel my duplicate’s pain. Nowhere near as intense, but it made my eyes water. Speaking of which – cold water swirled round our waists now. The pipes that fed the swimming pool must be raging at full power. As they vented, as Mason Konrad 2 roared with agony, as I threaded the free end of the leather belt through the cage bars the Echoman who’d had his ribs pounded into something that must have resembled mashed potato struggled to help his comrade. Although his arms were broken he fumbled with metal fastenings on top of the bars that formed the roof over our head. These must be catches or bolts, which meant sections of the roof could be raised. That’s the way out.

  Pain troubled this Echoman, too, because he made an extended ‘Eeeee’ sound as he struggled to unfasten the hatch.

  ‘It’s come out!’ Madeline yelled. ‘He’s free!’

  ‘No, he isn’t!’ I’d looped the stout leather strap over Mason 2’s forearm that lay flat against the bars above me. Even though the pin popped from his cheek, allowing him to raise his head (his bloody head at that), I held his forearm down on what formed his floor and our roof. The strength in my arms wouldn’t be enough so as I gripped half the belt in one hand, and half in the other, I swung my feet up until I rested them on the roof bars. There I hung, doing a fair imitation of a sloth as it hangs by its front paws and back claws from a branch. My bodyweight accomplished what I couldn’t have hoped to achieve by muscle power alone. The belt formed an effective restraint round one forearm. Mason 2 bellowed louder. His accomplice carolled that ‘Eeee’ note as he fiddled with the catches. Below me water gushed into the cell. No doubt both my mother and Eve heard the screams of pain from their cells and they were crying out to me to find out what was happening but the level of noise was so formidable I couldn’t hear them.

  How long that scenario would have lasted without us being interrupted I don’t know. However, a pair of figures raced across the metal grille; their feet clanged as they pounded toward us. They knew exactly what they had to do. One got hold of the broken Echoman by the hair; with no hesitation he threw the broken man aside as if he was a piece of trash. Both newcomers flicked back the catches, raised the steel grid, then reached down to deliver a blow to my head that turned the noisy building silent as death.

  chapter 17

  Wet … Thunder …87 Screams … Lots of wet … choking wet. That’s what I woke to. And what a strange waking … Let me tell you, they don’t get any weirder. When I opened my eyes I was no more than five inches from the steel grid that formed the cell roof. A face loomed from the shadows above. It was the man with the same face as mine. This was the Echoman who was a duplicate of me. Every detail of his features would be identical apart from the wound in the middle of his cheek made by the belt buckle pin. The hole in the skin was big enough to admit the end of a pencil. A shiny plug of congealing blood formed a stopper to prevent any more bleeding. Immediately around the wound was a ring of bloodless, white skin; encircling that a fearsome blue bruise resembled a rain cloud. I’d hurt him. Dear God, I’d hurt him. All these thoughts floated through me in a dreamy way. We seemed to stare at our mirror images for a long time. He didn’t blink; the brown eyes were cold. As well as physical appearance he’d robbed me of my mannerisms. The one he employed now was the way I had of pushing my thumb against the corner of my mouth when a dilemma troubled me.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he told me (my voice, my teeth down to the slight gap in the middle of the upper two). ‘I’m not like the rest. What you’ve done has forced me to be inhumane. Even though there was no option other than keeping you locked up I made sure you were safe from harm. Because of this’ – he touched the wound – ‘we know that you’ll stop at nothing until you’ve escaped. Now we’re forced to destroy you.’

  The cold hit me. The roaring sound, the screams pierced the fuzz in my head left by the knockout blow. A bare arm encircled my throat; a solid body pressed against my back. Someone’s behind me. I began to struggle.

  Madeline’s voice sliced through the cacophony, ‘Mason, don’t fight. It’s OK … I’ve got you.’

  That must be the moment I came to my senses. Madeline supported me in the flood of water. We were so near the roof bars of our prison because we floated above the bottom of the pool. Madeline had one arm round my throat as she battled to save me from drowning; her other hand gripped one of the bars as she kept our heads clear of the icy liquid gushing in through the pool’s feeder pipes.

  ‘They’re going to flood the place,’ she shouted. ‘Once the water reaches the roof bars we won’t be able to breathe.’

  ‘Mom!’ I yelled. ‘Mom! Eve!’

  I thought I heard their voices call my name. The din had become thunder. All the time the swirling inrush of water tugged our bodies.

  ‘Where did he go?’ The figure on the bars above our heads had vanished.

  ‘They’ve got problems with the other cells. They hadn’t figured on the weight of water. Th
e walls are collapsing.’

  ‘Mom! Are you there!’ If this botched structure in the swimming pool had started to give way then Mom and Eve might have escaped. ‘Madeline, can you find the locks on the hatch? It’s right above us.’

  Even though my hands consisted of numb bunches of fingers that were near useless after being immersed for so long I gripped a cage bar with one hand, while I reached through to feel with the other. Madeline helped me.

  ‘I didn’t see how they fastened them,’ she shouted.

  ‘They must just twist off, something like a butterfly nut.’

  ‘Locking screws?’

  ‘Too time consuming for them.’

  ‘Here!’ Despite the exhaustion clouding her face her eyes suddenly blazed in triumph.

  I found one. ‘It’s a butterfly nut. Turn it—’

  ‘Anticlockwise.’

  I nodded. There we were: both holding on with a right hand, the one that bore the same Y-shaped scar. It reminded me to be on my guard. Madeline had saved my life. She was also one of the Echo creatures, a female replica of me. Just how much could I trust her?

  I covered my sudden doubt by talking. ‘They were in too much of a rush after slugging me to do these properly. They’re only finger tight. Maybe before they had someone keep watch in case we discovered how they secured the hatch.’

  ‘Pray they’re too busy now to keep checking on us.’

  A muffled thump. ‘Must be one of their bloody useless walls falling down.’

  ‘Got the last one. Push!’

  Together we pushed upward with so much force it drove our own heads back under water. I came up gasping. Madeline had vanished apart from a pair of forearms that thrust out of the water to heave the grille. Again my attention was drawn back to the red scar that carved those lines on her sopping hand. This would be a good moment to prevent the woman’s escape – permanently. Yet, even though she was, without doubt, one of the Echofolk she still hadn’t turned against me. Here we were, working together. Allies. I knew I couldn’t kill her yet. Maybe that would prove to be a fatal mistake, but how easy would it be for you to murder another human being?